


Path of a Jedi, This Is

by Nny11



Series: Close But No Cigar [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano is traumatized, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Ahsoka was Yoda's Padawan, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, CBNC AU, Family Issues, Family is Difficult, Father-Daughter Relationship, Forgiveness is Never Required but it Can Be Given, Gen, Yoda is Doing His Best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 18:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny11/pseuds/Nny11
Summary: Ahsoka reflects on her relationship with her former Master Yoda before finally calling him. She just needs to decide what she wants.





	Path of a Jedi, This Is

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Donner who left a comment on the series and said he wanted to see what happened if/when Ahsoka and Yoda meet again.
> 
> Thus reminding me that I only posted this story on Tumblr because I'm a fool. :D

Fall not to emotion, but to peace. Spread not ignorance, but knowledge. Find passion within your serenity. Create not chaos, but harmony. Fear not death, for there is the force.

That was the path of a Jedi.

Of course when Ahsoka thought of it, her mind always whispered to her, “ _ Path of a Jedi, this is. _ ” 

That voice, warm and heavy and full of wisdom shattered her attempts at finding peace each time. A feedback loop of the worst kind. I am emotional, I must find peace. Path of a Jedi this is. I am emotional, I must fall into peace, path of a Jedi this is. On and on, never relenting... It hurt. 

Even when she could have claimed the title of Jedi, back when she’d deserved it- no, no when she’d  _ wanted _ it, Ahsoka had always struggled to not love. Or at least not love in the way Jedi weren’t supposed to love. A clean love. Love without dependence, love without jealousy, love without fear. She’d probably had so much love stuffed into her body that the Force itself had been at odds of what to do. Ahsoka loved every single person she thought of as friend or family. Secretly harboring that knowledge, knowing that by having them be  **her** friends and  **her** family that she was failing. Fear blossoming from each bout of awareness. Afraid that she wanted to possess them. Worse, afraid because she was afraid. Most Padawans would have simply turned to their Masters and asked for help.

That was a lot harder to do when your Master was Master Yoda.

By the time Ahsoka had been concerned that she’d discovered a bad habit, the war had been in full swing. She’d been so happy to see him that she’d stuffed it down, down, down. Was it more important that she release her emotions or more important that she learn what her Master deemed important for her survival in this conflict? It was a weak argument. She acknowledged that as she sat and listened at his feet, letting the tone of his voice soothe her. Letting the authority of his position calm her. Quietly letting go for just a moment her fear and feeling instead that love. 

Loving him because he was her Master.

For years after leaving the Order and leaving his side, Ahsoka had tried to avoid her Jediness. She buried the proverbs, the songs, the codes that had centered her for so long. She’d refused to observe holidays and memorials. She shunned anything that even looked like it should be used by a Jedi. Ahsoka felt desperate to be free of it. So she hacked at every grounding tether until she was left with nothing left to stand on. It had been terrifying to feel so unbalanced but she wouldn’t be like them, she refused to be like them. Ahsoka didn’t hate, no, she didn’t hate, but she was angry. She was hurt. She was scared. She felt stupid and small and foolish. She was confused. 

She could solve much of that last one with a single comm call. The handwritten request to talk from her (former) Master was still tucked away in her bedside drawer. Something she’d pull out at night when the weight of it all threatened to drown her, something she’d stare at convincing herself that she shouldn’t call. 

That if she did she was forgiving him. If she did she was condoning the Jedi’s actions. That she’d be perpetuating a cycle. That if she did she was weak.

For years she tucked it away. The note, her faith, her everything.

But time is funny, in a way.

Slowly, parts of her came back. The stories that she’d always loved, the songs that had filled her heart, and a code that could help ground her. It was still terrifying some days...well, most days. She wasn’t alone, true, but Anakin had never felt the way she did. When Ahsoka spent her name day meditating and fasting, reflecting on where she had come from and where she was going; Anakin spent his celebrating twice as hard to make up for hers. In so many ways he was fearless now,  **truly** fearless now. 

Yet even with the little shards she’d pieced together, Ahsoka was still afraid. More grounded, happier, but still so very lost.

It had been a bad month. Everything had gone wrong. Half the days she lived in dread and the other half she lived in a haze. Ahsoka found herself sitting more and more with that scrap of flimsi, looking at all the little swirls in his writing. A promise to speak, but only if she wanted to. Did she want to?

Her stomach was lodged somewhere in her throat as she bounced her legs up and down. Waiting for the call to connect.  _ Fall into peace, path of a Jedi this is _ . Ahsoka swallowed thickly. 

Was she a Jedi? 

She didn’t know, she worried that maybe she’d never know again. This was one last tether to cut away. One last connection to the Order she could scrub clean. Peace through closure. 

Or it was something she could choose to nurture again, on her own terms. To find answers and prove to herself that she was growing again. Peace through knowledge and action. 

Ahsoka chuckled nervously. If she didn’t get an answer, and some peace real soon, she might end up calming her stomach by throwing up. The thoughts piled up one after another, too many too quickly to keep track. It made her grimace. Her mind was another issue that she honestly couldn’t handle thinking about right now.

There was a click, a flashing light warning her that the call had connected and her cheap holographic unit was doing its utmost to synchronize with Master Yoda’s unit in the Temple.

She could still hang up. She could end the call before it started, right now. Right  ** _now_ ** .

Ahsoka took a slow breath in, held it for a moment, and released it. Letting her fear float on her breath like individual strands of spider silk. The light stopped blinking and the small holographic image of her Master was there.

Master Yoda looked...he looked so old and frail. He had always been ancient, already closing in on 900 years old when she’d become his Padawan. Maybe time away allowed her to see it for the first time. Ahsoka clutched at her knees as she stared, clenching and releasing to stop herself from saying anything foolish. Although, to be fair, Master Yoda only stared back as well, his ears pulled high and tight in surprise and his eyes blown wide as he searched her face. She was terrified of him. She was terrified he’d end the call. What would he say? What could he say? She loved him. Ahsoka latched onto that with all her might. For all she was angry with him, she missed him. She’d missed him so.

“Hello Ahsoka,” Master Yoda finally broke the silence, his voice was rough and soft.

There, in the Force, she felt the smallest tap. Not a demand, not a request. A greeting.

“ ‘lo Master.” Ahsoka cringed. Mumbling at her Master. Not her Master. What was she even supposed to call him now? Everyone called him Master Yoda.

His smile was warm and infinitely kind. It helped to banish some of her fear, and doing the rash thing, Ahsoka reached for him in the Force. Though she hadn’t traveled that path in nearly a decade, Ahsoka moved with confidence. It wove one way and another, branched and overgrown as it ended at the stone door to his mind. Open. It was open. He didn’t have it closed. He would let her in if she wanted to enter. It was open. Ahsoka padded softly to it, peeking through into the wild jungles and finding a path cleared just for her. Slowly, oh so very slowly she put her hand on the door frame.

Waves rippled from where she touched, low pitched echoes racing into him, bouncing back to her. Disappearing into the vastness of the Force. It returned gently, in a puff of humid air. Ahsoka’s nose twitched as she took another deep breath. Fire blooms, moon lilies, and soil.  _ Safety _ . Her greeting returned with a welcome. Ahsoka grinned, a literally warm welcome that was also literally on the nose. 

He didn’t hate her. 

She hadn’t been sure until this moment that he didn’t hate her. She could feel it there, deep somewhere inside of him. Regret and sadness, currently shadowed in his joy and his love. Something wiggled loose in the Force between them. The bands around her chest loosened.

In a way she hated that it meant so much to her. A bitter part of her still hissing from his betrayal was smothered under her relief. 

Ahsoka couldn’t bring herself to enter, not now, not yet-maybe never. Just knowing that the option was there though, just knowing that he had meant it when he’d written her that note...He cared.

“An apology I owe you. Unfairly I treated you. Acted in fear I did. I...if there is anything I can do?” Yoda’s face scrunched as he awkwardly ended his sentence. It wasn’t nearly enough. It wasn’t  **nearly ** enough but it was also more than she’d ever thought she would get.

“I was...I was just, uhm.” Ahsoka cringed. 

What had she really wanted out of this beyond what she’d received? Even if she didn’t forgive him yet, he had apologized and admitted he’d been wrong. He was offering to do anything she’d like to help her. He’d left the door open, unsure how to prove his sincerity but earnestly wanting to. What did she want from him? An explanation, not right now when Ahsoka felt like she was already about to shake apart at the seams. What then? What then? Her head tilted as she considered too many possibilities at once from the best to the worst.

“Troubled are you?”

Ahsoka ducked her head, heart kicking oddly against her ribs. Of course he’d notice. Despite what people always thought, her Master had always looked for ways to help others. He’d always been kind to her until the day he hadn’t. Her breathing hitched as she whispered, “It’s been a rough week.”

He frowned, one hand rubbing at his head. “Mmm. Perhaps, hrm, breath with me would you?”

It wasn’t what she wanted but perhaps, in this moment, it’s what she needed. Her mind supplied memories from when she was eight and struggling to keep her emotions in check under the weight of her changing responsibilities. Half a day spent working on her ability to balance with Master Yoda poking at her with the force. _Balance you must find, peace can you find if unbalanced you are? Difficult this would be._ _Balance starts, as all things, in the breath._

She nodded and breathed. The first breath burning cold against the back of her throat. The second breath shuddering slightly on the exhale. The third, the fourth, the fifth, all slowly prying the bands around her chest apart. She lost count, breathing in and out, watching Yoda who had closed his eyes as he guided them. Suddenly, it was like she could breath for the first time in years. 

She’d long since learned that clarity came at the oddest of times.

She thought on the phrase she’d relied on for so long. Fall not into emotion, but into peace. Perhaps she just needed to adjust it. Ahsoka had always found her peace and her balance like this, not alone and aloof but with people she cared about, that she cared what they thought of her. That she loved. Perhaps she could find peace through emotion. It would take a lot of work and practice, but the idea was appealing to her. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the man who had been so much to her. A mentor, a teacher, a confidant, a friend, a father. The things he had become; a betrayer, an empty promise, a cold appraisal.

What did she want from this?

She wanted to forgive him. She just needed to give it  _ time. _ Slowly, she could come to terms with this. This one thing that had haunted her. Then she could move on to the next big thing. The next and the next, there would always be a next. But just because new problems would arise didn’t mean she couldn’t fix one. That she couldn’t at least  _ try _ . She could start here. With this one call. She could work from here.

The clarity was a like a cool glass of water when you didn’t realize you were thirsty.

She took another deep breath, one last look at Yoda’s face as he counted down to the exhale. She closed her eyes on one, exhaled, and found a small pool of peace to float in.

**Author's Note:**

> You never have to forgive someone who has hurt you, no matter what their relationship is to you. No matter the path that is right for you, make sure that it is one that frees /you/.


End file.
